Can I have a good trip from finely chopping Phalaris grass and smoking it without anykind of extraction process? I realize I would probably have to smoke more of the chopped grass than the more pure extracted DMT, but it would be worth it not to have to have to go through the long extraction process. I was also wondering if it would be dangerous to smoke Phalaris in this form. I would greatly appreciate any information you could give me on this. Thanks in advance!

A:

This is a complex question. The active alkaloid content (N,N-DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and others) varies greatly from one species of Phalaris to another. Alkaloid levels also vary depending on the exact time of harvest. One of the best sources of info on this topic is Trout's Notes on Ayahuasa and Ayahuasca Alkaloids. According to this book, alkaloid levels range from nearly 0% by dry weight on the low end to 1.2% on the high end.

These alkaloids are going to be split between N,N-DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and others. 5-MeO-DMT is active when smoked at 2-3 mg...with most people using in the 5-10 mg range. If you assume a relatively respectable alkaloid level somewhere in the range of..say 0.50%, it would take (rough guess) at least 5 grams of dried leaf material to provide around 15 mg of 5-MeO-DMT.

5 grams (between 1/8 and 1/4 ounce) of dried material would take some time to smoke. Users report that there is a threshold required to get effects from DMT which requires a certain amount of smoke to enter the lungs in a short period of time. If this threshold isn't met, many people find that a 15-30 minute break is needed before trying again...starting from scratch.

From this rough calculation it seems that it would be nearly impossible to get enough 5-MeO-DMT or N,N-DMT into your system by smoking raw Phalaris grass unless the alkaloid levels of the particular specimen were known to be extremely high.

We have received no reports of smoking raw Phalaris grass so we have little data on possible dangers. While it seems unlikely that there are significant dangers to smoking a small amount of plant material, the risks are definitely unknown.